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U.S. President Donald Trump intends to build metallurgical plants on Pentagon military bases as part of his plan to increase domestic extraction of critical minerals and weaken China’s control over this sector.
This was reported to Reuters by two senior Trump administration officials.
This move is one of several planned in an executive order that Trump could sign as early as Wednesday, after he told the U.S. Congress last week that he would “take historic steps to significantly expand the extraction of critical minerals and rare earth elements here in the U.S.”
According to sources who were not authorized to publicly discuss the administration’s plans, under this order, the Pentagon will work with other federal agencies to establish processing facilities on its bases.
The use of military bases for processing would underscore the importance Trump places on minerals critical to national security. Fighter jets, submarines, bullets, and other weapons used by the U.S. military are built from minerals processed by Beijing.
According to one of the sources, Trump also plans to appoint an official responsible for critical minerals.
Some Trump administration officials, according to one of the sources, were alarmed by early signs that China might restrict the export of critical minerals in response to Trump’s tariffs or for other reasons.
The plan, which prioritizes metal processing rather than revising the U.S. mining permit system, may frustrate American miners but addresses long-standing concerns among manufacturers that China controls too much of the global metal processing sector.
It should be noted that the failure to sign a mineral agreement with Ukraine is at the core of the worsening relations between Kyiv and Washington.
In his speech to Congress last week, Trump said he appreciated the willingness of Ukraine’s president to sign a mining agreement and sit down at the negotiating table under his leadership.
And according to NBC News, Trump now considers the mineral agreement alone insufficient for restoring military aid to Ukraine.
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